BRODBECK: Pallister can't be a part-time 'smart shopper'

Government can’t spend smart just some of the time. They have to spend smart all of the time. And by refusing to tender out a multi-million dollar project, it shows Brian Pallister's government isn’t quite as committed as they claim to getting government’s finances in order.

Government can’t spend smart just some of the time. They have to spend smart all of the time.

The good news is the Pallister government is tendering two major lake outlet projects and will not be using a project labour agreement that forces non-unionized workers to pay union dues.

The bad news is government single-sourced the access road part of the project, violating its own “shop smarter” mantra.

Premier Brian Pallister repeated his government’s commitment Monday to building two outlets to help control flooding in south-western Manitoba. A 23-kilometer channel will be built from Lake Manitoba to Lake St. Martin. And a similar-sized channel will be built from Lake St. Martin to Lake Winnipeg.

It’s a massive capital project with an estimated price tag of over $500 million. It’s the largest public works project undertaken by the province since the expansion of the Red River Floodway a decade ago.

The Floodway project, though, included a forced-unionization provision brought in by the former NDP government. Under its project labour agreement, all workers on the project – including non-unionized ones – were forced to pay union dues if they wanted to work on the project. It was a way for the NDP government under then-premier Gary Doer – a former union leader – to support organized labour, who in return work for the New Democratic Party during election campaigns.

But it cost taxpayers big-time. Instead of putting out tenders to the private sector and accepting the best proposals at the lowest cost, only those willing to participate in the forced-unionization scheme put in bids. That narrowed the scope of those willing to bid on the work. And by forcing workers to pay union dues, it increased the cost of labour. As result, the price tag for the project was artificially inflated to support organized labour.

That won’t be the case for this project.

“Project labour agreements, like those forced onto contractors by the previous government, do not allow the government to shop smarter,” Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler said in a news release Monday. “We are ensuring all contractors submit bids that will build the outlet smarter and with better value in mind.”

Unfortunately the Pallister government didn’t apply that same principle to the access road portion of the project. The road construction job, valued at just over $11 million, wasn’t put out to tender. The contracts were given to several First Nations groups through the Interlake Reserve Tribal Council and the Lake St. Martin First Nation. The argument in favour of sole sourcing to them was that many First Nations residents in the area were hard hit by the 2011 flood and this was a good way of giving them some economic opportunity.

But as the Manitoba Heavy Construction Association, which is opposed to the sole sourcing decision, has pointed out, tendered contracts could have easily included provisions to hire local First Nations people on jobs. In fact, that’s now commonplace for many publicly-funded projects.

In other words, government could have tendered out the work and selected the best bids at the best price for taxpayers and still fulfilled a local jobs requirement to help those affected by the 2011 flood. Government could have “shopped smarter” and been socially responsible at the same time. But they chose not to.

That’s disappointing considering, as you may have read in this column Monday, how indebted the provincial government is.

Government can’t spend smart just some of the time. They have to spend smart all of the time. And by refusing to tender out a multi-million dollar project, it shows the Pallister government isn’t quite as committed as they claim to getting government’s finances in order.

Shopping smart shouldn’t be a part-time job. It has to be a full-time one.

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